v4c95 The Lost Food (1)
At this time, almost half an hour had pa.s.sed since she was found, and Brendel saw the newly awakened Peya look blankly at her surroundings, and there seemed to be a hint of confusion in her eyes. and the confusion in her dark eyes turned into intense vigilance.
Suddenly, like a beast, she rolled over and bounced off the ground, her hand subconsciously reaching for the short bow behind her back.
But she was bounded to grab nothing.
Then Peya came to her senses, and she saw Brendel, stunned: “Ah! Sorry, Lord Knight……I thought-”
But Peya’s words suddenly stopped.
When Brendel saw the horrified look on her face, she turned around at once and looked into the surrounding forest, as if she had seen a ghost.
“How……exactly……the same……”
Peya suddenly took a few steps back, ignoring everyone around her as she retreated and observed the woods around her. She retreated faster and faster, and then she took off running, disappearing into the forest in a flash.
Everyone was stunned by Peya’s action. Brendel was also startled before noticing that the hunter maiden had disappeared in the exact direction that led to the exit of Milos’ Breath.
“Brendel?” Freya asked, “What’s wrong with Peya, should we catch up with her?”
Everyone looked at each other, not knowing what was going on, and Brendel himself was confused. Peya’s did not seem like a reckless person. On the contrary, she was an outstanding hunter.
Most outstanding hunters, however, had one trait in common.
Calmness and composure.
Brendel only hesitated a little and then said, “Let’s follow her.”
A faint starlight began to appear in the forest, indicating that they were leaving the range of the Eternal Night Forest. Under the dim light, Brendel saw the hunter maiden ahead like a st.u.r.dy female panther moving between the forest’ trees.
She did not go deeper into the forest blindly, it was more like she was finding a path, occasionally stopping to wait for them. This put Brendel’s mind at ease, for there was nothing he hated more than someone leaving the team and putting others in danger, which was both selfish and stupid.
But it did not look like Peya had lost her mind, as Brendel saw her occasionally stopping and looking around, with a puzzled look on her face. This confirmed the suspicion in his mind that the hunter maiden must have discovered something in her dream. Sometimes dreams revealed the future, and the chances of this happening are slim to none, but it would not be impossible if Peya’s dream was entangled with her brother’s.
Brendel realized that Peya might have seen the direction in which Duke Arreck and the others were headed in the dream.
This was the only possibility that could have made the young hunter maiden so disoriented. But it meant that her brother was not dead, at least not while pa.s.sing through the forest.
In this way, the group moved forward for about two or three hours under the leadership of Peya, during which she never deviated from the direction leading to the glaciers. It further showed that Brendel’s hunch was correct, and that if Arreck and the others had pa.s.sed through here, they would not have easily left the correct route.
And it was at this time that Peya finally stopped.
Brendel parted the bushes with a rustling sound, and caught up with her from behind with everyone else. He saw Peya standing dumbly under a cedar tree. He walked closer and saw that Peya was holding a dagger.
The dagger could never have belonged to her, for her short sword was still pinned to her boots. Other that that, Peya would have been unarmed.
“Is this your brother’s stuff?” Brendel took a look at the dagger, and saw that it was just an ordinary animal skin knife. n.o.bles would not use such a vulgar device, but only hunters in this area.
The hunter maiden turned back, and Brendel was surprised to see her red-eyed. Peia rubbed the corners of her eyes, took a calming breath and replied, “Could the dream be real, my lord?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, I was alone in a dream and I dreamt of what happened that day. I dreamt that I was dead, frozen in the river, but my soul was muddled, as if I heard a voice calling me.”
“I saw those pale knights and I followed them dazedly. I saw my brother, and I saw those men from that day, as they moved slowly forward through this forest, and I saw my brother following them, behind a much taller figure ……”
“I saw him pa.s.s here and fall. I called out to him, but he didn’t answer me, and I saw his dagger fall here ……”
Peya looked down at the dagger in her hand with some fear, “It’s right here.”
“What else did you see?” Brendel immediately realized that this should be her brother’s dream, and that her brother should have experienced the dream of the Lost Names and left part of his memory here. But he was curious, her brother’s dream was so badly damaged that it was incredible for him to pa.s.s through here. He could not help but ask further questions.
“I saw them go into an ice land with the snow and wind obscuring them, and I stayed there forever.”
The hunter maiden looked up with an odd kind of panic in her eyes and she shivered, “Am I dead, Sir Knight?”
She looked at Brendel somewhat blankly, almost shivering, and asked, “…… Am I, am I now a ghost?”
Brendel felt the hunter maiden’s question was a bit absurd, but he could probably understand Peya’s panic. Not everyone knew about the mysterious legends like him, and most country people would attribute the incomprehensible to ghosts and spirits.
He coughed, “You are not dead. The dream was absurd, but part of what you saw may have been real. Your brother may have survived, just like what you saw, but that part is actually his memory of what he left here.”
Peya trembled when she heard this, “Really?”
“Of course, you understand that I don’t have to lie to you,” Brendel replied.
Peya was so excited that she clenched her fists, her chest rose and fell obviously. She turned around and thought about it, then turned back and said to Brendel with some embarra.s.sment, “I’m sorry, Sir Knight, I was a little too reckless before.”
Brendel sighed, what else could he say? One can ask a soldier to obey military discipline, but Peya was certainly not a soldier, nor an adventurer, nor a mercenary, but a hunter. He still lectured: “Just remember in the future, what you did was very dangerous, not only for you, but also for others.”
“Those knights behind you, some of them, like you, have brothers, sisters, or are parents, can you bear seeing their families lose them?”
“I’m sorry……” Peya hung her head low in shame this time. She knew that n.o.bles had many rules, and that people of her status did not need to ask why. They just needed to obey. But Brendel’s explanation made her embarra.s.sed instead.
Although she was in awe of those high and mighty n.o.blets, deep down she did not necessarily share their values. But Brendel’s words made her realize that people were actually the same, and that the rules in a team were meant to protect everyone in it.
For the first time, Brendel accepted the hunter maiden’s apology, not for who he was, but for such behavior.
“Can you determine the route of Duke Arreck and the others?” He asked again.
The hunter maiden was startled, then nodded.
“That’s good.” Brendel replied.
……
The Glacier of Despair-
Not a day had gone by without Aloz throwing a fit since entering this vast expanse of ice. She thought it would have been better to have gone with Brendel in the first place, instead of listening to him and going with that boring Ash Sword Saint to meet up with Veronica.
Of course, there were many things that made her dissatisfied. The cold climate, for example, was making her skin rougher and rougher, and her patience had been stretched to the limit by that chattering amba.s.sador of the Kirrlutz army. How did this guy know that I am from Aouine, and how dare he speak to me with such an att.i.tude!
If she had not wanted to reveal her ident.i.ty, she would have swallowed him as a dragon, so that her ears would not be bombarded all day.
The same goes for the offspring of the arrogant Kirrlutzian n.o.bles. Sometimes she secretly squinted at those obnoxious people with her golden eyes, thinking with hatred whether to rip them all apart after all this was over.
But this was merely a thought.
The Dragons were arrogant, but not stupid. The Holy Cathedral of Fire of the Kirrlutzians would not let the Dragons reign the human territory. Of course, the four Holy Cathedrals were not the main point, but instead, it was those annoying, self-righteous people from Buga.
Every time she thought of the Silver Folks’ existence in this world, Aloz could no’t help but hate them full-heartedly. If it were not for the Bugas, those Craft Mages who always thought of themselves as saviors, the humans and Elves would have become toys of the Dragons.
“What a nuisance.”
Aloz cursed in her heart, cursing the smiling old man to bang headfirst into a wall and for Onais and the other Floating Cities to fall into the sea as soon as possible. She twirled her platinum curls around her ears and walked out of her tent muttering.
She would not have bothered to show up if Brendel’s party had not arrived, as it was so cold outside. The Silver Folks who were unkind to the Dragons called them big lizards, which of course was unacceptable to Aloz. But Dragons were indeed cold-blooded creatures, and there was no doubt that most other kinds of dragons, except for white Dragons, were uncomfortable in the cold weather.
Aloz sneezed in the snow and rubbed the tip of her little red nose, looking like a soft and weak loli. She did not look like a scary little female dragon at all.